Native American Study!

This week we started our much anticipated Native American Study! This study is designed to teach the kids about the first peoples who lived on this land. Students learn about the different Native cultures who used the resources found in their region to make a variety of different homes, clothing, foods, tools, and art. 

We do talk about the culture clash between the Native Americans and the European settlers as disputes for land and rights were settled with unbalanced technologies in a "might makes right" fashion which is NOT the value we want the first and second graders to embrace. 

The kids are working in small groups and each group is named for a different tribe from one of the US regions we are studying. The station activities reflect aspects of Native American culture in a way that is crafted to keep the spirit of the skill or art form without directly copying it to avoid any chance cultural appropriation. 

At our musical station, kids performed a traditional Native American chant to their own rhythm using authentic instruments such as drums and rattles to keep the beat. 

At our kinesthetic station kids have the opportunity to create a dance to traditional Native American music. The kids take inspiration from an animal in our region to choreograph their dance moves and perform their finished dance to the group. 

Our logical-mathematical station is keeping kids' hands and minds busy working on patterns. Our weaving station is stocked with metal or plastic frame looms for making potholders out of stretchy loops. Kids had to remember the "over, under" patterning that keeps the loops from coming apart once it's taken off the loom. 

We have many traditional Native American games that would have been played by many peoples across the country. The groups of kids work together to learn the game and then try it out. The games this round are largely games of chance where students toss sticks or stones to see how many land stripe or design side up to score points. The groups work together to play fairly and to be good sports. 

Finally, at our verbal-linguistic station kids are trying their poetic hands at crafting a rewrite of a traditional Chippewa animal poem. Using the structure of the original poem, students write their own version about an indigenous animal and create a scratch art illustration to accompany their work.

We will continue at our stations until all groups have had a turn through each experience. Check out the picture below from our first week of station work!